Create a Shortcut key for the strikethrough effect in Word

I had a student approach me the other day who asked if there were shortcut keys to change a highlighted word into bold or underlined or even italic. And could you use these to change the settings before you even start to type too. I said: “absolutely”. Bold is CTRL+b, Underlined is CTRL+u, italic is CTRL+i. Using them again will take off the setting of a highlighted word. They were very happy with the answer but then said that they also required a shortcut key to use the strikethrough effect. Well there isn’t one at the moment but after reading this tip you will be making your own shortcut keys for all the affects you need to use quickly.

How to create a shortcut key in Word

You don’t need any text to set the shortcut key up.

Begin by opening up the Font dialog box. You can access this by selecting the tiny arrow at the bottom right hand side of the Font section on the Home Tab. This will result in this dialog box appearing. Or you could use the shortcut key CTRL+D.

Hold down the CTRL and the ALT keys and press the PLUS key on the number pad all the way to the right of your keyboard. The plus in the ‘qwerty’ keyboard will not work.

A flower like symbol appears that represents where your mouse arrow is and that you are now in the customizing keyboard mode.

Select the strikethrough option in the effects area. This symbol will disappear as soon as you move towards the option you require, don’t worry its fine.

This dialog box appears. Your cursor is in exactly the correct place to assign a new shortcut key to this option. Press new shortcut key. Please note that if you type in a shortcut key that is already in use, the usage is shown below.

e.g. CTRL+C

This will show that it is currently assigned to: “EditCopy” Make sure that you don’t use one that is already assigned to something, as it will override that command with your new one.

I find that the combination of CTRL+SHIFT a good one combined with a letter or number Also the ALT key is not used to assign things so maybe you would like ALT+S as the shortcut key for strikethrough?

This can now be used by you whenever you need to strike through a word. If there is one that is already struck through you can use the same shortcut key to un-strike it.

Having given you the knowledge of creating your own shortcut keys you can now have great fun in creating more. Such as a particular font such as Algerian. Your final assigning dialog box would look something like this.

Sadly, this way of assigning shortcut keys to options in Excel or PowerPoint will not work.

Krystyna has been an IT Trainer for over 22 years; she has trained Microsoft products since their 1st release, as well as other packages from other companies such as Oracle, Adobe, Lotus and Corel. She has trained a varied audience from University students to Managing Directors, in one to ones, small groups to over 50 in a lecture environment. Her experience of industries covers a wide spectrum from Utilities, MOD, Advertising, Medical, Police, Cosmetics, IT and Financial.

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